some writings which had been intended
for them, and he further charged Isabel to deliver another to her
youngest sister, Agnes, affianced to the Duke of Burgundy. "Dearest
daughter," said he, "think well hereon: full many folk have fallen asleep
with wild thoughts of sin, and in the morning their place hath not known
them." Just after he had finished satisfying his paternal solicitude, it
was announced to him, on the 24th of August, that envoys from the Emperor
Michael Palaeologus had landed at Cape Carthage, with orders to demand
his intervention with his brother Charles, King of Sicily, to deter him
from making war on the but lately re-established Greek empire. Louis
summoned all his strength to receive them in his tent, in the presence of
certain of his counsellors, who were uneasy at the fatigue he was
imposing upon himself. "I promise you, if I live," said he to the
envoys, "to cooperate, so far as I may be able, in what your master
demands of me; meanwhile, I exhort you to have patience, and be of good
courage." This was his last political act, and his last concern with the
affairs of the world; henceforth he was occupied only with pious
effusions which had a bearing at one time on his hopes for his soul, at
another on those Christian interests which had been so dear to him all
his life. He kept repeating his customary orisons in a low voice, and he
was heard murmuring these broken words: "Fair Sir God, have mercy on this
people that bideth here, and bring them back to their own land! Let them
not fall into the hands of their enemies, and let them not be constrained
to deny Thy name!" And at the same time that he thus expressed his sad
reflections upon the situation in which he was leaving his army and his
people, he cried from time to time, as he raised himself on his bed,
"Jerusalem! Jerusalem! We will go up to Jerusalem!" During the night of
the 24th 25th of August he ceased to speak, all the time continuing to
show that he was in full possession of his senses; he insisted upon
receiving extreme unction out of bed, and lying upon a coarse sack-cloth
covered with cinders, with the cross before him; and on Monday, the 25th
of August, 1270, at three P.M., he departed in peace, whilst uttering
these his last words: "Father, after the example of the Divine Master,
into Thy hands I commend my spirit!"

[Illustration: The Death of St. Louis----64]

CHAPTER XVIII.----THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE.

That the